Marcus Thompson of The Athletic dropped a bombshell column on Tuesday evening, detailing the severity of the issues between Draymond Green and Kevin Durant that came to a head during Monday’s loss to the Clippers.
Green was suspended one game without pay for “conduct detrimental to the team” based on what he said to Durant during the verbal spat, which reportedly included calling Durant a “b****” multiple times, and commenting on Durant’s upcoming free agency. You can read all the juicy details here.
Thompson joined Adam Copeland in the KNBR studio on Wednesday afternoon to fill in for Fitz & Brooks, and reiterated the severity of the situation when asked if the issues between Durant and Green will be a lingering problem.
“This is a huge problem,” Thompson began. “Most of these professional sports things, time just deals with them, right? You keep playing, you have good moments, you forget about the bad right? You just keep playing, let the games keep coming, let other experiences happen and it kind of drifts away.
And you have the perspective of, ‘remember that? That was cute, but it wasn’t that serious.’ This is not one of those things. This is one of those, we have to sit down and talk, and if we talk we still may not solve this. It definitely ain’t going to happen organically through the season, like something has to be done.
One of the more curious moments during Durant’s postgame presser on Tuesday, is when he refused to answer a question about his friendship with Green. Thompson said he’s under the impression that the two have been relatively close up until now.
“They’ve been friends though,” Thompson said. “If I had to pick who Durant is most friendly with on the team, it’s obviously Quinn Cook because he grew up with him, but I would’ve said out of the All-Stars, it’s Draymond. I don’t think this was new though. You don’t pop off like that. This has been brewing, and brewing, that’s how you pop off.
“They clearly, as long as this has been brewing, they haven’t been great friends.
“This is why they get paid millions, and this is why they’re pros. If they can’t go out here and play, that’s a problem. You’re getting a whole lot of money to suck it up and play.”